On 4 August 1996, the first remains of Saltriovenator were discovered by amateur paleontologist Angelo Zanella, searching for ammonites in the Salnova marble quarry in Saltrio, northern Italy.

Cristiano Dal Sasso and the volunteers of the Paleontological Group of Besano, under the direction of Giorgio Teruzzi managed to salvage a number of chalk blocks visibly containing bones.

[1] In December 2018, Dal Sasso, Simone Maganuco and Andrea Cau named and described the specimen as the type species Saltriovenator zanellai.

Comparing with the skeletal elements of MOR 693, an Allosaurus fragilis specimen, they conservatively concluded that the Saltriovenator holotype individual was at least seven to eight metres long.

[2][3] Dal Sasso originally referred it to the Tetanurae[5] He later considered that it may represent an allosauroid, although in either case it would predate other members of the clades by roughly 20-30 million years.

Limusaurus Masiakasaurus Noasaurus Abelisauroidea Szechuanosaurus Xuanhanosaurus Megalosauroidea Allosauroidea Coelurosauria Saltriovenator was found on an open marine environment, where it was probably washed from the nearest mainland, being scavenged by invertebrates as proven by the presence of Sedilichnus sp.

[1] Since the beginning of the Jurassic, from Hettangian to earliest Sinemurian on the western Lombardy Basin there was a notorious continental area that was found to be wider than previously thought, where a warm humid paleoclimate developed.

[12] This was an emerged structural high close to the Saltrio Formation, that caused a division between two near subsiding basins located at Mt.

[12] It settled over a carbonate platform linked with other wider areas that appear along the west to the southeast, developing a large shallow water gulf to the north, where the strata deposited was controlled by a horst and tectonic gaben.

[13][14] These outcrops show that the emerged areas that on the Hettangian-Sinemurian, the current location of the modern Maggiore Lake was covered with forests, what was proven by the presence of large plant fragments on the Moltrasio Formation.

[11] The plants have been recovered between the locations of Cellina and Arolo (eastern side of Lake Maggiore), from rocks that have been found to be coeval in age to the Saltrio Formation.

[4] The Flora includes genera such as Bennettitales (Ptilophyllum), terrestrial Araucariaceae (Pagiophyllum), and Cheirolepidiaceae (Brachyphyllum), that developed on inland areas with dry-warm conditions.